


Five Stories Kelly Kapoor Never Told

by typicrobots



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-18
Updated: 2006-07-18
Packaged: 2018-06-05 01:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6683110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typicrobots/pseuds/typicrobots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is not Kelly Kapoor Story Hour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Stories Kelly Kapoor Never Told

1\. _"And the guys are saying, 'Chug chug chug!' but I'm so small and all I'd eaten that day was one of those Auntie Anne's pretzels from the food court, so I said, 'Is it OK if I sip it?' and they said no, but Ryan seemed cool either way."_

  
Ryan doesn't take her out much, so when he tells her that they're going to a friend's party, Kelly gets real excited. She does her hair and make-up and slides on a heart toe ring because it's the details that make an outfit.

She feels it's all for nothing when Ryan comes to pick her up and doesn't say a single word about how she looks, so she says it instead.

"So I wanted to go for a casual dressed-up look, which is why I'm wearing flats with this skirt, even if it doesn't match perfectly. But I was reading in  _Elle_ that mixing styles is the new thing and even though it went against like, all my instincts to wear such a fancy skirt with flip-flops practically, I did it anyway. But I think it works. Don't you think it works?"

Ryan doesn't take his eyes off the road. "Yeah."

Kelly sighs. She doesn't know what she was expecting from him.

They get to the party and Ryan doesn't introduce her to anyone. She introduces herself, only as his "friend from work" because _Glamour_ says that guys don't like it when you define the relationship before they do. His friends are nice; they try to get her to chug but it's so unladylike that she makes excuses. Ryan does it in her stead and by the end of the night, he's so drunk that she has to half-carry him out of the building.

They're barely out the door when Ryan lurches forward on the sidewalk. His head disappears behind a dumpster and Kelly has to turn away when he starts to vomit. She asks if he's all right. He doesn't answer, only slumps up against the brick wall, wiping at his mouth.

"Don't tell anyone at work about this," he says quietly. He looks down at his hands. "I don't want them seeing me like..." he shrugs. "I don't know, like I'm a real person."

Kelly promises not to tell. Despite what people may think, she's actually very good at keeping secrets. Like she's never told Ryan about the time she slept with Jim, when she first hooked up with Ryan and then he didn't call her for a week. She knows all about maintaining an image, and if Ryan doesn't want anyone thinking of him as a frat boy, just like she doesn't want anyone thinking of her as a slut, then no one will.

"Come on," she says as she helps him up. He's heavier than he looks, and it takes her a few tries before he finally collapses into the passenger seat of his car. Kelly gets behind the wheel and starts digging through his pockets, when Ryan stops her by putting a hand gently over hers.

"Thank you," he says with her hand still in his breast pocket. His voice is very calm. His eyes are very blue.

Kelly doesn't say anything. She draws back her hand, clutching his keys, and focuses on getting her seat belt on. It's so unfair. She feels like crying. Tomorrow, he's going to pretend like this never happened, that for one moment, he was actually nice to her. Whether it's an image thing or if he really doesn't like her, she'll never figure out. All she knows is that it's not fair.

Kelly's not a moron; that's the other thing people don't see about her. She's perfectly aware of how Ryan treats her. But every few months her mother calls to tell her that another cousin back in India has gotten engaged, and each time they only seem to get younger and younger. Kelly answers that she's focusing on her career right now, it's all right to get married a little older here, but the truth is that she's not good at either – her job or her love life.

Last year, the consultant at EHarmony told her that she needed to lower her expectations. Real life isn't like the movies, he said. She's not going to meet a handsome millionaire doctor, especially not through an online dating service. Kelly did as she was told, lowered her standards until she found herself here, taking care of a temp who'll maybe one day have his own business, maybe not. Nothing certain, nothing definite, just like everything else in her life.

A motorcycle roars by too close and Kelly startles in her seat. Next to her, Ryan has passed out, so she buckles him in. Maybe she cries a little, maybe not. Her skin feels stretched too thin over her bones.

It takes her a few minutes, but Kelly starts the car and drives him home.

 

2\. _"The Spicy Curry award goes to our very own Kelly Kapoor."_

Kelly is reading an article in _Cosmo_ called "Three Ways to Use Your Body to Get What You Want in the Workplace," when Pam comes into the break room, reads the title over her shoulder, and scoffs.

"That's disgusting," Pam says before pouring her coffee and leaving. Kelly looks back down at her magazine but doesn't get what the big deal is. It's just a helpful article.

Nevertheless, she reminds herself not to have it lying around in case Jan comes in.

_Step 1. Use your assets._

Kelly has always thought her boobs were her best features. Not huge in a vulgar way, but perky and cute. She wears a push-up bra and a low-cut shirt that day, and sprays a little perfume in her cleavage. She read somewhere something about heat and pheromones. She doesn't really remember.

Kelly makes sure to lean over his desk when she goes to see him.

_Step 2. Accidentally-on-purpose make physical contact._

Kelly hops up on his desk and crosses her legs. She fiddles with his stapler while she talks, then "accidentally" drops it into his lap. He groans a little from the impact and Kelly winces, but then quickly recovers.

When she brushes her hand against his inner thigh while retrieving it, she hears his breath hitch. "I– uh– pfft–" is all he can say.

_Step 3. Wet your lips when asking for what you want._

Kelly wets her lips. She can taste the waxy artificial flavor of her lip gloss.

"Michael," she says, "I've been thinking I deserve a raise."

 

3\. _"Because Toby used to sit there, but then he had to move over there because of an allergy."_

Michael announces to the office that Toby is getting divorced and that everyone should be really nice to him for the day. Kelly goes to find him in the break room during her lunch hour but can't think of anything to say to him. She offers him half her salad; he holds up his Pizza Hot Pocket. She says she's sorry; he just shrugs. The less he speaks, the more uncomfortable Kelly feels and suddenly she's telling him all about her parents' marriage without really knowing why.

"They've been together for like, ever, but it's not like they're even happy, you know? My dad goes back to India for business a lot so they don't ever see each other. My mom doesn't even take him to the airport anymore. And isn't that what a marriage should be? Like, taking the other person to the airport?"

What she really means is you should be with someone that makes you happy, and getting a divorce isn't a failure, it's doing the right thing because it's not fair to you, your wife, or your daughter to be living in an unhappy home.

What comes out isn't exactly that. In the middle of telling him about how her parents forgot her sixth birthday, Toby reaches out a hand and clamps it over her mouth. His palm tastes like salt and pepperoni and ink toner.

"Please," he says desperately. "Stop." He drops his hand and leaves the room with his Hot Pocket still in the microwave.

The next day, Kelly comes in to see that Toby has switched desks.

"Allergies," he says when she bumps into him at the coffee machine. "To... the wood... in the desk."

"Oh," is all Kelly can manage.

 

4\. _"Oh my god, he is so cute."_

Yesterday, the new temp came in and Michael put him at the empty desk in front of Meredith. Kelly didn't have the nerve to talk to him, but she thought he was really cute. Nice hair. Really blue eyes. Ryan, she thinks Michael said his name was.

Today, Kelly makes a lot of trips to the printer that sits between Creed and Ryan. Kelly is wearing the tan pencil skirt that she bought last week with the 3-inch high heels that she bought the week before that. She loves how her legs look in this outfit.

E-mails. Junk mail. Catalogue order forms. Kelly retrieves her print-outs as dramatically as she can, even does a little spin when she turns to go back to her desk. Ryan looks up once from his computer. Smiles shyly at her. She counts that as a win.

Later that day, Kelly comes back from lunch early – before Ryan, before the cameras – to fix her make-up. On her desk, she finds a Dunder Mifflin post-it.

"You have pretty calves," it says. She smiles.

It's signed "Creed."

Ew. She drops the note onto the floor. Ew ew ew ew ew.

 

5\. _"You know what? Here's the deal, Kelly. It would be really nice if he was into you, right? It would be great. But he isn't."_

A few days after Valentine's Day, they all end up at Poor Richard's. Roy comes to pick up Pam early, as usual, and from across the room Kelly watches them argue. Pam's voice is low, terse; Kelly can't really hear what she's saying. That's fine, because Roy is speaking loudly enough for the both of them.

"It's been a long freaking day, Pam, and I don't want to deal with this!" he bellows and storms out. Pam grabs her jacket angrily, almost knocking the coat rack over, and follows him out. The door slams behind them.

The rest of the night is mostly uneventful. Dwight announces loudly that he's leaving; Angela slinks off soon after. Ryan hasn't spoken to Kelly since that night before Valentine's Day when he kissed her like he meant something by it, so she's not really surprised when she looks up from her third appletini to find that he's gone. Michael loses a round of Quarters to Jim and is saddled with the task of carrying Meredith home.

"Everyone's gone," Kelly says to Jim, who is staring down at his glass of brown liquid something.

"Yeah," he answers, "Roy is a real asshole." Maybe she's drunk, but she doesn't understand what that means. "Come on," Jim says when he sees her trying to stand, unsuccessfully. "I'll take you home."

That was probably a bad idea, because Kelly doesn't realize how drunk Jim is until he drives his car into her neighbor's garbage can. She tells him he should come up to her apartment and sleep it off a little. He looks at her building. He looks at the garbage strewn across the street. "All right," he says.

Jim practically takes up the whole length of her couch. She sits down by his feet, where there's still a little room.

"I hate Valentine's Day," Jim says from somewhere beneath a fuzzy cushion. "Why can't you ever be with the one you want?" A pause. "Wait, that's a song." Another pause. "Is that a song?"

Kelly pulls the cushion off his face. He sits up so he can see her better.

"Do you like someone?" she asks, deadly serious. "I mean, _like like_ someone?"

Jim almost smiles. "Try insanely in love with someone."

"That must be nice," Kelly says quietly, almost wistfully. And then watches Jim's face crumple.

"No," he says. "It's really, really not."

Kelly's not used to this. Jim hardly ever speaks to her, so this is new. She tries to hug him, but they're positioned uncomfortably and Jim is avoiding her eyes. Kelly suspects that he might be crying. It makes her sad, how much he's hurting. She thinks she's never been this broken up about another person before, not even Ryan, who she liked enough to go on an ice-cream-eating binge when he didn't call her.

Kelly has her arms awkwardly around Jim so that when he shifts his weight, she loses her balance and falls into his chest. She can feel his heart beating, steady and slow, which is sort of how she thinks of him. She isn't really surprised that when she raises her head, his lips find hers.

Kelly pushes him away gently. "But you're in love with someone else," she tells him, a hand still on his chest. "Isn't this like, being unfaithful or something?"

"I don't–" Jim sighs, turns away. "What about Ryan?"

Kelly shrugs. "What about Ryan? He's nice," she says, like that's an explanation.

Jim sits up straighter. "No, what I mean is– Don't you want more than _nice_? Don't you–" He stops because he thinks she wouldn't understand. He looks at the wall next to him. "Never mind."

But Kelly does understand; she understands perfectly even if Jim doesn't – nice is the most you're ever going to get. Real life isn't like the movies; it isn't true love, music montages, tasteful fades to black. It's a guy who doesn't like you very much and awkward fumbling in the dark. But you take what you can get because real life is also dinners for one and dying alone with only a million cats to mourn you.

"Jim," she says, drums her Strawberry Electric nails against her thigh. Brings her hand to his face and turns him back towards her. He breathes into her mouth before finally kissing her, long and slow and more than a little sad. Jim is thinking of someone else; that much she can tell from the shape of his mouth. He pulls at her skirt. She imagines how his hands must look against her skin.

When Jim breathes something into her neck that's not her name, Kelly only closes her eyes. She knows she'll always be second place or just good enough for now – never The One – but one day she'll come across a guy who has run out of options and maybe she can get him to buy her a nice ring.

Jim grunts against her shoulder. Tears a button off her blouse.

Maybe. One day.   



End file.
